Recall of San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen hurtles into last days

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Madison Nguyen is greeted by District 1 councilman Pete Constant before walking precincts in San Jose.

Madison Nguyen, right, visits supporters at the Khemera Rangsey Temple in San Jose.

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San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen and husband Terry Tran work at her headquarters Sunday. Nguyen, the city s first Vietnamese-American council member, is facing a recall election.

Volunteers Julissa Elvencre, 17, of San Jose and Herbie Morales, 18, of San Jose walk in District 7 for the Recall Madison Nguyen committee in San Jose reminding people to turn out and vote to recall Nguyen.

Volunteer My Phuong Le of San Jose cares for son Hoai Viet Peske while phone banking for the Recall Madison Nguyen committee in San Jose last month. She was reminding people to turn out and vote to recall Nguyen.

Residents of San Jose’s District 7 on Tuesday will decide a question asked just a handful of times in the city’s long history: Should a sitting council member — Madison Nguyen, in this case — be removed from office?

Only once have voters said yes. For four other council members, the answer was a resounding “no.”

Now, with Election Day fast approaching— and as Nguyen’s friends and foes brave wet, gray skies in their exhausting final push to turn out as many voters as possible — whether history winds up on Nguyen’s side is very much an open question.

But one thing is utterly certain: Once the flurry of door-knocking and phone-banking subsides, the result — no matter which side prevails — will mark an end to one of the most contentious chapters in San Jose’s recent political past.

“It will be a relief, whatever happens,” volunteer My Phuong Le, 33, of San Jose said Sunday inside the busy campaign headquarters run by the Recall Madison Nguyen Committee.

Then she looked at her 4-month-old son, Hoai Viet Peske, born in the middle of the recall campaign: “He should be at the park, not at a recall center. Hopefully, we will all get back to our normal lives after this.”

Conflict dates to ’07

A return to “normal” may not happen overnight.

The issue that sparked the recall fight — Nguyen’s opposition to the name “Little Saigon” for a Story Road shopping district — has been roiling the community since late 2007.

It soon served as a referendum over Nguyen’s political career, sparking cries of betrayal and allegations that she had been listening more to developers than her own constituents. Soon, the very community that made her San Jose’s first Vietnamese-American city council member had gathered thousands of signatures in hopes of making her the city’s first recalled Vietnamese-American official.

“We were hopeful that she would understand the Vietnamese community better,” Le said in between calling voters Sunday, “because that’s her background.”

Meanwhile, the passions stirred by her foes in months of rallies outside City Hall and in District 7 throughout 2008 threatened to divide San Jose’s Vietnamese community, while alienating many non-Vietnamese city residents.

“We live side by side, and it’s dividing us up,” Bertha Ward, 60, said before a round of walking voter precincts on Nguyen’s behalf earlier this winter. “It’s unfortunate. I feel like we’re in Bosnia or some place like that.”

The wrenching emotions of a recall race were a major reason why, in 2005, City Council members persuaded Nguyen’s predecessor, Terry Gregory, to resign after he found himself immersed in an ethics scandal.

They invoked the 1994 ouster of District 8’s Kathy Cole, a black councilwoman who was overwhelmingly booted by her diverse constituents after remarks and gestures aimed at Asians and Latinos during a speech were caught on videotape.

Attorney Mohinder Mann, one of the organizers of that recall fight, said harmony after a bruising fight is possible.

“Once the election was over, we quickly worked hard to bring the community together,” said Mann, who stressed his impartiality in the District 7 fight. “Once the issue’s been dealt with, people come together to figure out what’s good for the district, and they rally around the best person to lead them.”

But he also touched on a key difference in the Cole recall: “Almost the entire community was against her. Not just in the district, but throughout the entire city.”

Both sides feel good

In this fight, clear indications of which side’s winning have remained elusive. Both camps have claimed a warm response from the District 7 voters they’ve called and visited again and again over the past three months.

And that’s not counting the dozens of volunteers sent scrambling across the hardscrabble district on Sunday, despite the steady rain. Or the dozens more waiting to be sent out tonight and until the polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“We’ve probably talked to every single household,” said Paul Le, treasurer of the recall committee. “I feel so good. Clearly, we’ve got the momentum.”

Le points to the 7,000 signatures gathered to put the recall on the ballot. That’s nearly as many votes as were cast in previous District 7 elections.

Nguyen’s side, in trumpeting the hundreds of jobs and affordable-housing units delivered to the district under her watch, points to her sizable sum of campaign contributions — some $200,000. That’s about twice what her opponents have raised, although they counter that their donations — from more donors and in smaller amounts — reflect a broader base of grass-roots support.

Nguyen’s camp also sites the support of her City Council colleagues, who have joined the volunteers in walking precincts. And they hail the steadfast backing of San Jose’s labor movement, which has mobilized workers from across the valley to stump on Nguyen’s behalf.

Most of the votes — nearly 8,000 absentee ballots turned in so far — have already been cast. A large percentage of those, according to an “inexact” spot check by recall supporters, appear to have been cast by Vietnamese.

But Bob Sandoval, a Nguyen supporter and West Evergreen leader, said he has been serenaded with plenty of support over the past three months of weekends spent stomping around the district.

“I feel very positive,” he said Sunday. “I told Madison, ‘You don’t have much to worry about.’ “

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